Reference#: P02153

It is desirable to detect not only the presence and magnitude of acoustic signals, but also the direction of the signals. Various directional acoustic sensors are known. Such vector acoustic sensors often employ an accelerometer, which can add to the cost of such equipment. What is needed is a simple and less costly acoustic sensing system, which can also provide directional information about the received acoustic signals.

The Applied Physics laboratory has invented a hydrophone assembly and a system and method for deploying the assembly, particularly in hydrophone arrays for underwater acoustic sensing of subsurface marine vehicles. The hydrophone assembly consists of four hydrophone units for converting an acoustic signal to an electrical , the hydrophone units are parallel, and have a cylindrically symmetric spatial relationship with each other, with at least one spacer or semi-rigid exoskeleton element to maintain the hydrophone units fixed in the spatial relationship to each other, and the units and spacer elements are embedded to form an elongated, flexible body. The invention also provides a system for deploying the hydrophone assembly. The invention advantageously provides a means for deploying a directional hydrophone assembly with less chance of twisting the hydrophone wires. The assembly is collapsible into a size A or smaller sonobuoy.